STORES STILL WANT TO SELL YOUNG ON RETAILING CAREERS

Major retailers have been reducing middle-management staffs to cut costs and make operations more efficient.

Although that means fewer jobs and slower promotions for middle managers, store executives say retailing still offers good opportunities.

''There are fewer staff jobs in retailing these days, but there are good openings for line jobs,'' said Howard Falberg, vice president of personnel for Associated Dry Goods Corp., which operates Lord & Taylor stores in New York and Chicago, J.W. Robinson stores in California and Joseph Horne stores in Pennsylvania.

''We`re paying salaries for graduates right out of college ranging from $16,000 to $21,000 a year, depending on the part of the country,'' Falberg said. ''We hired about 500 this year.''

As an industry, retailing ''cannot attract the optimal people (with MBAs) because we are not competitive in terms of starting salaries,'' he said. ''But at middle-management levels, we do pay more than some other industries.''

Some sales clerks, Falberg said, are paid about $5 an hour plus commissions, depending on where they work and what they sell.

Sometimes, middle-aged women are forced to return to the job market after the death of a husband or to meet expenses. Many turn to retailing. They are not paid the same as new college graduates. But for them, too, the outlook may be improving.

Falberg says he looks for three special skills, especially in college graduates who hope for promotions:

-- Marketing skills and ''being attuned to consumer needs.''

-- System skills, which require awareness of the logistics of inventories and moving merchandise.

-- People skills, or the ability to work with the public. This includes dressing neatly and being personable.

Falberg breaks the retailing business into various segments, each calling for a different marketing approach: the ready-to-wear area, a volatile field affected by style changes and public whims; menswear, a much less volatile sector; and appliances, a fairly stable business.

Each store, he says, has its own atmosphere. As a result, marketing techniques must be flexible.

Alice Bird McCord is a senior vice president of the National Retail Merchants Association, based in New York.

She believes that someone who has done an outstanding job and has been promoted can earn more in retailing than in some other fields.

McCord says that in recent years, leading store chains have cut back on campus recruiting and have become more selective in hiring.

''This can offer attractive opportunities for some of the women going back to work who lack college degrees,'' she said.